1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, a relay method, and a computer program.
2. Description of the Related Art
One configuration of printing apparatuses and the like is a single printing apparatus including a plurality of computers each assigned with a unique IP address. In such a configuration, the single printing apparatus holds a plurality of IP addresses and thus management of this apparatus on a network as a single device is difficult and complicated. Therefore, there is a need to unify the IP addresses of the plurality of computers forming the printing apparatus into a single IP address.
Thus, a known technique is to unify IP addresses of a plurality of computers installed in a single printing apparatus into a single IP address by a network address port translation (NAPT) router that rewrites an IP address and a port number to be transferred, thereby realizing many-to-one communications between a global space and a private network space in which the computers forming the single printing apparatus are connected to each other.
For example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2010-199738 discloses a technique of an address conversion apparatus that relays communications between a global network area and a private network area in order to facilitate management of terminals.
However, these address conversion apparatuses of the conventional techniques have a problem that assigning of communication data is difficult when the computers (devices), which are within the private network and installed in the single apparatus such as a printing apparatus, execute applications such as Web services that use a same port number among these applications.
Therefore, there is a need to provide an information processing apparatus, a relay method, and a computer-readable storage medium, which are able to readily assign communication data, even if devices, which are installed in a single apparatus and are within a private network, execute applications that use a same port number among these applications.